We have a brand new music video out today for our song “Another Ride”. It was directed by Jake Nelson and we’re really amazed at what he put together. Click the link to head on over to the USA Today site to watch the video now!

We have a brand new music video out today for our song “Another Ride”. It was directed by Jake Nelson and we’re really amazed at what he put together. Click the link to head on over to the USA Today site to watch the video now! http://usat.ly/anotherridessdb

On Oct 21st we’ll be opening for the Avett Brothers at the Clearwater Jazz Holiday in Florida. Esperanza Spalding, Bonnie Raitt, and others are also playing this festival – and tickets start at just $10. We caught the Avetts last [...]]]>

On Oct 21st we’ll be opening for the Avett Brothers at the Clearwater Jazz Holiday in Florida. Esperanza Spalding, Bonnie Raitt, and others are also playing this festival – and tickets start at just $10. We caught the Avetts last year at Mountain Jam and they put on a great show – we’re really looking forward to this one.

The band swung by the Huffington Post right before leaving for their recent tour to do an interview & stripped-down performance. Check it out here: http://huff.to/sistersparrow.

Headed down to New Orleans now to open for the Soul Rebels Brass Band. It’s going down at the Blue Nile on Frenchman Street tonight (Doors at 10 / 18+). (PS Maybe you’ve noticed the Soul Rebels have been playing with Metallica a bit [...]]]>

Headed down to New Orleans now to open for the Soul Rebels Brass Band. It’s going down at the Blue Nile on Frenchman Street tonight (Doors at 10 / 18+). (PS Maybe you’ve noticed the Soul Rebels have been playing with Metallica a bit lately?)

We’re thrilled to announce we’ll be appearing at Bonnaroo this year. Y’all must’ve heard about it by now… Radiohead, Phish, The Beach Boys, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and a LOT more. Check out the lineup here and start psyching yourself up for an amazing weekend.

The Washington Post writes “Sister Sparrow, Arleigh Kincheloe’s nom de disque, is a soul queen with a voice strong and raspy enough to compete with riffing horns and clipped funk beats.”

The band hits tonight at The Hamilton in downtown Washington DC.

Read the full WaPo review here: http://wapo.st/HGMmKl

Check out the whole playlist and reviews here: http://usat.ly/birdsplaylist.

In which the dirty birds scramble around the Midwest, find some sweet slides in the middle of the night, pay their respects to Little Bear, and return home after a good month out in the wilds.

Oh Austin, gray and lonesome on that postdepartum Monday morning. I’m sure all the locals shook [...]]]> 3/19/12—4/1/12

In which the dirty birds scramble around the Midwest, find some sweet slides in the middle of the night, pay their respects to Little Bear, and return home after a good month out in the wilds.

Oh Austin, gray and lonesome on that postdepartum Monday morning. I’m sure all the locals shook their heads, and then their fists at nothing in particular and said “good riddance!” If I lived there I think I’d take an extended vacation during that whole two week period. We drove out of town, the road unending beneath our tires, driving back East towards Little Rock. The wind picked up, the rain lashed down. The sun set and the world turned bleak and black—strong gusts rocking the van suddenly, causing us to sometimes careen unexpectedly across lanes of highway. At some gas station in the Middle of Nowhere East Texas, we found that an official tornado watch had been in place in that area for the past few hours. Biting rain, glimpses of lightning in the distance, rolling thunder. We pressed on, and after some time (white-knuckles gripping the steering wheel), we finally seemed to come out on some other side, passing into Arkansas and finally rolling into Little Rock, where we checked in to the same La Quinta Inn we crashed at only a few nights before. There were those of us who weren’t sure if we had in fact been in this hotel or not. But we had, indeed, been there. The next morning we slept in. And then woke and watched sports, anything, on TV, as the torrential downpour of the heavens came down outside the window. At one point, a huge dark mass came from the East and blanketed the whole city in darkness. The cable cut out, phone lines went dead for a minute. Like the passing of some great ghost, or some God of ancient days. Even 20 minutes later, after the great cloud had withered away into the West, most of the stations had yet to reset. Black TV screens, rain against the window. The show that night was, as you might expect, not quite at capacity. But there were a few brave souls who weathered the winds and came out to watch us rock – and rock we did – because we sure as hell weren’t going to let a little rain and wind get in the way.

The next morning we drove up to Springfield, MO. A grayness still hung above the land, the wind still howling lowly, intermittent rain. Nathan P. Murphy’s club is a genuine piece of history. Owned and run by Dr. Bob, who has a radio show in town, it has stood in its present location for about 30 years. Dr. Bob told us the whole story. When he first opened, in the early 80′s, it was strictly a jazz club, and some of the greatest to ever play graced that stage as they criss-crossed the country. Jaco Pastorius. Buddy Rich. Chuck Mangione. The list goes on. CRAZY history. After some years, and with changing tastes and the downturn of the jazz economy, Dr. Bob was forced to adapt, and so for a time the club brought in Heavy Metal acts. For the past decade or so, though, he’s turned it into one of the premier blues and rock clubs in the Midwest, and developed a loyal audience, lovers of real music. A true gem tucked away in Springfield, MO. Dr. Bob’s wife Wanda cooked us a feast—juicy chicken, green beans with bacon and mushrooms, broccoli, mashed potatoes and salad, mmm yes. It was a great crowd considering the weather was still a bit tempestuous. JJ’s cousin Lindsay and her husband Carson (see Episode #3 for footage of their son being an awesome little dude in Paris, MO) came out and saw us play live for the first time. Great, great show, thanks so much to Dr. Bob and all those good people for giving us such great energy. In the morning we drove on to St. Louis. The sun finally showed up. Blossoms on the trees. Green grass and flowers in the city parks. We did a radio show that morning (Check it out here), and then cruised over to the Gramophone for more rock. Burning and cruising through the midwest at this point. On to Kansas City that next day, back at the Mad Max multi-stage oasis that is Knuckleheads.

About a year ago, when we had just signed with New Frontier, we got booked to play a show in Omaha “way off” in March of 2012. Well, rolling into sunny Omaha that Saturday morning, we looked around and realized that that day had finally arrived. It’s very strange to be in a profession where by definition you’re “living in the moment” every single night. Playing like it’s your last show, your last chance to leave something memorable, something meaningful up on that stage. And now here we are finally reaching a date, a stage, that had been set aside for us so long in advance… I suppose every life has the potential for this awareness of the moment in the context of our selves moving through time, but somehow for me it really adds to the surreality of our life on tour. The ebb and flow of the ever-changing hotel room and venue, and the realization of moments in real-time that have been planned for a year in advance. The structured chaos of van life. Living in a bubble, somehow cut off from the everyday, and yet firmly ensconced in it. Walking up on stage, lights glaring, people clapping and screaming. And the whole time we’re looking at each other wondering if this isn’t some sort of strange dream, that we’ll wake up and still just be living in Brooklyn, playing gigs, working our random jobs. What the hell are we doing in Omaha, Nebraska?? To add to all this, it was Phil’s birthday (and also the one year anniversary of his first show with us!), and we had, well, hit it pretty hard the night before. So here’s our moment in time: onstage at the Holland Performing Arts Center in Omaha, NE, playing the dirty rock, looking out into a veritable sea of people, chuckling at the fact that both fate and a year of road times had brought us together and that none of these people realized how utterly hung over we all were. And maybe laughing a little incredulously that we are able to be in this position at all—rambling around the country, playing our music for people who pay to come out and see us. And then they go back to their homes and lives, and we get back into the van and continue our journey, punctuated by an endless stream of foul language and inside jokes. The next city, the next stage, the next crowd. After a few more birthday beers we walked back to the hotel through downtown Omaha and miraculously came upon a sweet little concrete amphitheater space which had some amazing slides. Omaha is full of great public art, little public spaces, green spaces—a lesson in how to design a highly functional downtown area, supportive of community interaction, and, of course, shenanigans.

Funtimes in Omaha. Slides are the best.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJ1gBcxv6IE

The next day we drove to Ames, IA, home of Iowa State University, for a show at the Maintenance Shop, located in the student union right in the middle of campus. So surreal, watching all of these kids walking around wearing their Iowa State hoodies and sweatpants and t-shirts. Backpacks slung haphazardly over slouched shoulders, chatting with classmates. A couple of non-students came out as well—a son and father who drove all the way from Minneapolis-St. Paul to see us and proceeded to TEAR IT UP on the dance floor. Thrash Metal Dancing. Knew all the lyrics to both albums, yet this was their first live show. Seriously awesome. The next morning I woke up early and took a stroll around the campus. I only made it through two years of college before I bounced out into the world, and it being in Manhattan I sure as hell never got a taste of a self-contained campus like IA Sate. Crazy little ant colony of higher education. Tuesday found us in Madison, WI, what a great, great town. Two meals in two days at the Weary Traveler make for happy birds. Then it was Chicago on Wednesday with a day off before our show there on Thursday. Such a crazy city, almost feels like you’re on a coast… almost. I ended up out on the Navy Pier, checking out this stained glass museum. Some amazing Tiffany pieces. The lonesome expanse of the lake. The show that night was at Martyrs’, one of the best sounding rooms we’ve played. Their whole system is made by Bag End, and you know we like anything Lord of the Rings related. In another crazy example of “its a small world after all” this guy Will who I met 4 years ago on a flight from Moscow to Siberia came to the show. That’s a story for another time, but suffice it to say that he ended up settling in Chicago, decided to look me up on the internet, found the Dirty Birds and low and behold we were rolling through town. Blast from the past to say the least.

On the pier.

Tiffany.

Friday found us in Cleveland at Beachland Ballroom, a venue that Ryan and Johnny frequented during their college days at nearby Oberlin. Shortly after getting off stage it was officially Ryan’s birthday. Dangerous having a double-birthday tour, ha. We surprised him, lifting him off the ground, singing—all eight of us plus some random people who joined in, picked him right up and raised him to the ceiling, up and down, all of us yelling “birthday birthday birthday!” Then yesterday morning (yes, yesterday morning), March 31st, 2012, we drove the two or so hours to Pittsburgh for a show at the Rex Theater, the last show of this almost-month-long journey, our first of the new year. Pittsburgh is a unique city, and a special place for we Kincheloes. As you may know, Arleigh & Jackson and my twin dads grew up there back in the day, and so it’s always an interesting town to rock—hanging with old friends from their high school days, their children and friends of friends. The Rex is an awesome club too. The guys at Grey Area productions always take care of us. It felt like coming home, which is all we could ask for the last night of a long run. Afterwards, the streets outside were a madhouse, teeming with drunken 20-year-olds, gaggles of guys and girls trying too hard to impress each other. Saturday night in South Pittsburgh, tight dresses and polo shirts, broken bottles, clubs with lines out the door, people fighting to get in, spilling out into the street. Cops with their lights flashing, no one paying them any mind, looking like a disaster zone, us slowly weaving our way into the night.

And here we now are, a few hours from home. It’s nice to be all caught up to the present day with these blogs—I can write in the present. As in right now I’m sitting in the van driving through western Pennsylvania, on the road to Brooklyn. We just stopped off in some tiny town a few miles off I-80 where Ryan’s old van “Little Bear” rests in peace, broken down in despair outside an auto repair shop (don’t ask him how it ended up there) so he could grab his license plates. We rummaged through the detritus of the past few years. Crazy to think we used to tour the country in that conversion van and a small hatchback. We took what we could use—a US atlas, some advil, a raincoat—then we turned around and left it behind for good. An apt metaphor for this time in our journey—the continuation of the road and the discarding of whatever we don’t need. Survival tactics, learning as we go. Learning how to live in this bubble. Learning to love the bubble. The trees here aren’t quite as far Sprung as they were back in the South. The memory of winter still holds the slightest grip up here. But not for long. I’ll talk to y’all soon.

Goodbye Little Bear. It's been real.

As always, ever onwards.

Yr friend,

Bram